Modern-day Indian Breaking the Shackles of Caste and the Past by Aravind Adiga

In Chapter, one The Rebirth of Caste examines the history of racial social control in the United States. Alexander refers to the shifting forms and habitual patterns of "racial caste" system. She vies that proponents of "racial hierarchy" have been able to guarantee its recurrence after effective ends following the end of slavery and the dismantling of the original Jim Crow. She describes the starting point of it all is to bring about the separation of the poor whites and blacks; creating a hierarchy in the United States social class. The author believes this is possible largely, by appealing to the biases and uncertainties of lower-class whites. This caste-based system has existed in three different forms: slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. Alexander’s important influence is to show how each of these forms was brought about deliberately and how, in its latest form of mass incarceration, the caste system continues to achieve its aims of segregation.

The Caste system has aroused much controversy than any other feature of India’s society. Every day, Dalits are butchered, assaulted, abused, raped, lynched, shot or openly mutilated without considering any consequences of the offenders. The deaths of pregnant women who are not able to pay the bribes at government hospitals, some boys with eyes raised completely out for falling in love with a girl of a superior caste, and horrid stories of employees boiled to death because of spewing out arguments with the boss are continuously reported in mainstream newspapers. After years of democracy, the social structure stands to practice the caste system disregarding abolishment laws. Every international or national effort to abolish caste differentiation and segregation has been proven ineffective. The caste system of India is a deeply inculcated social problem requiring immense commitment domestically and internationally in understanding what has stopped the measures to get rid of this ancient system and what measures are needed to complete elimination of the system.

The caste system has been extremely stable in India for over two thousand years. It is only since the more modern, independent state of India was formed that the system has come under any scrutiny at all. It is presently outlawed, but many of the practices, attitudes and traditions remain ingrained in Hindu society (University of Wyoming, 1997).

The next idea that Sherman Alexie answers is what is like to be an Indian Man in the short story “An Indian Education” it seems as if to be an Indian man is to be caught between two worlds and sometimes picking one over the other. For example, the passage on page 176 states the following: “But on the day I leaned through the basement window of the HUD house and kissed the white girl, I felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe” (176). For the narrator of that section he felt like had to give up the Indian part of him because of kissing the white. He felt he disappointed his people and they would never for give him for it. He felt as if his tribe would see him as ‘sell out’. There is also a question of did he view himself the same way. The narrator continues state “After that, no one spoke to me for another five hundred years” (177). Sherman Alexie allow the narrator to end that section with a Hyperbole for added meaning. While we know the narrator was not alive for five hundred years, but it could have felt that way for him. He could have thought that everyone hated him or saw him in a negative light. “Amusement” has great examples of how the main character thinks what is like to be an Indian Man.

Although Balram and John have different nicknames, their backgrounds are an influence. Balram Halwai, a man from the ‘darkness’ or the lowest caste in India, strives for success and to leave the ‘darkness.’ When an inspector visits his school, the

Thesis: In “A Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, the caste system they have is very, very similar to the social classes we have today. Just like how people in the United States are treated differently based on their social class, in “A Brave New World”, people are treated very different based on what social caste they are in. All over the world, and in the novel, being prejudice is not uncommon either when it comes to the different social classes. The similarities between the different social classes and castes are quite impeccable, actually.

Looking upon Indian society for comparison, it is seen that the primary factor of the caste system is built

Belram talks about the school inspector coming in “wearing the finest suit” that “was a blue safari suit that looked even more impressive than a bus conductor’s uniform”, and he carried “a cane in his hand” (28). By the way he looks, with his blue safari suit he is from the light where he is seeing how people are doing in school. This shows there is a big difference between the “India of light, and the India of darkness” (12). Nobody in the darkness has every seen a guy in a suit before, and the students are looking at him. The darkness is the poor who have “small bellies” and the light is the rich who have “big bellies”, and we see this difference when the guy in the suit comes

In countries such as India, a Caste system still exists, but it appears as humans move towards equality for everyone, any future plans to implement social hierarchies will be fought hard, unlike Huxley’s predictions for a Caste-based society. From a young age, the citizens of Brave New World are taught lessons on social class such as the

Untouchability as claimed by the Indian government is said to be abandoned 60 years ago, however still 40% of Dalits are illiterate (Around 70 million). This tells us that the caste system unfortunately still exists. The caste system is a system of class and hierarchy, it divides people in terms of classes called castes which usually determines their status in the community and therefor their livelihoods. The caste system still exists and if not constitutionally definitely socially. The caste system presence keeps different communities separated, lowers national GDP (Economic activity/development), discriminates against those of the lower caste, slows the development procedure and creates unlimited social consequences.

Balram is angry talking about how India became the month after the British left in August of 1947. When the British were ruling, India’s castes were nicely divided like cages in a zoo. Now, Balram sees India as a jungle, where people are free to attack each other to improve their position. He calls out his dad for being weak because he did not for his sweet shop when a person from another caste seized it. His father ended up as a rickshaw puller instead. Balram comments that his dad did not have the belly to fight back. Balram is determined to not to be a man with a small belly. He is even more determined not to be his father. He feels he was, "cheated of my destiny to to be fat, and creamy-skinned, and smiling"(54). Balram sees India as a

First there was the laws created by the British where it was like a zoo, where which every animal lived in his own cage, which is symbolic for the different castes in the indian society, and whose participants are imprisoned into being either rich or poor, and if one was to step out of their cage they would be eaten up. “To sum up—in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat—or get eaten up.”(Adiga 54) This idea that one is born to be “eaten up” shows just how within India certain people are just viewed as disposable or are are just a nuisance. Those born into wealth will have access to the best of everything, including education, which resonates as a big theme in the novel because we see Balram throughout the novel boast about the fact that he became successful without a formal education. It was because of school that Belram started to view himself as a “white tiger”. In a scene where a government inspector came to Balram’s school he tested Belram and “pointed his cane straight at me[Belram]. "You, young man, are an intelligent, honest, vivacious fellow in this crowd of thugs and idiots. In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals— the creature that comes along only once in a generation?"..."The white tiger." "That's what you are, in

            The internal divisions and complexes hierarchy of the Indian society served an important social function.  The system provided each individual with a clear identity and role and offered the benefits of group solidarity and support.  Certain interactions and behaviors were appropriate only between those of equal status. The system assured that the religious, political, and financial powers were all separated into four different social classes (Bulliet, et. 2011).

Apart from the political criticism, a humanistic reading of the text reveals the social bias around the social politics, i.e. caste system. It bares the sad plight of the lower caste, even in the political system supported by the proletarian values. What Roy implies is that the Marxist party in Kerala worked from within the communal divides, never challenging them. Velutha is a member of the party. Yet he does not get help from the party leader Comrade Pilliai. Pilliai’s double standard distances him

E.M. Forster’s classic novel “A Passage to India” tells the story of a young doctor, Dr. Aziz, and his interactions with the British citizens who are residing in India during the time of the British Raj. Throughout the novel, the reader gets many different viewpoints on the people and the culture of India during this point in history. The reader sees through the eyes of the Indian people primarily through the character of Dr. Aziz, and the perceptions of the British through the characters of Mr. Fielding, Adela Quested, and Mrs. Moore. Through the different characters, and their differing viewpoints, the reader can see that Forster was creating a work that expressed a criticism that he held of the behavior of the British towards their Indian subjects.